Transformers: The Last Knight

As interminable and pointless as one might’ve feared, Transformers: The Last Knight follows Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager as he’s forced to come out of hiding and work alongside a history scholar (Laura Haddock’s Vivian) and a mysterious figure (Anthony Hopkins’ Edmund) to prevent the end of our world. As is generally the case with these movies, Transformers: The Last Knight actually gets off to a somewhat tolerable start – as filmmaker Michael Bay delivers a super slick and thoroughly fast-paced opening stretch that is, admittedly, mindlessly diverting. It is, however, not surprising to note that the picture eventually alienates the viewer with its predictable emphasis on eye-rollingly quirky humor and meandering subplots, with, in terms of the latter, scripters Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, and Ken Nolan infusing the impossibly bloated narrative with a whole host of uniformly under-developed (and completely uninteresting) elements – which, in turn, paves the way for an almost astonishingly tedious midsection devoid of even partially compelling attributes. (Even Hopkins is unable to infuse any life into this terminal production, with the actor relegated to spouting long, meaningless instances of unnecessary exposition.) Far more problematic, of course, is Bay’s perpetual mishandling of Transformers: The Last Knight‘s many, many action sequences, as the director continues to display a total disregard (or, in a more likely scenario, ignorance) for even the most basic rules of cinema – thus ensuring that the film’s many, many high-octane moments come off as a hopelessly incoherent blur of movement and noise. The seemingly endless final hour, which seems to consist of nothing but over-the-top, unintelligible action, ensures that the movie fizzles out to a decidedly breathtaking degree, and it’s impossible not to wish that this time Bay sticks to his usual promise to never, ever make another Transformers movie.

* out of ****